


A Study of Reality

by kriadydragon



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriadydragon/pseuds/kriadydragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal believes he is being watched, and it only escalates from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study of Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Swanpride and Nayahchan. Beta'd by TJ_Teejay.

There was a perfection to Caffrey's personality that should have made him a cliché. If anyone else tried to wear those clothes, smile that charmingly, come off as that friendly, it would have made them a caricature that society would have laughed at. But for Caffrey, it worked. For Caffrey, it was a tool, a weapon, a way of life that got him what he wanted. He was so damn perfect in looks and action it was easy to wonder if there was anything real about him, or if he wore masks like he wore his skin.

Not for the first time since Agent Burke took Caffrey under his wing like some dog rescued from a shelter, he wondered what, if anything, about Neal was real. Three years and nothing about Caffrey seemed to change.

Maybe he wasn't real. Maybe it was all just one big, stupid game. He kept wondering, and then wondered how one went about finding out.

\---------------------------

It was too nice a day to stay inside and stare at fake passports and IDs. Sunny, clear, mid seventies – you didn't often get weather this perfect, and when you did, you didn't waste it. A two-mile radius didn't offer anything new or exciting but was kind enough to offer places where Neal could sit and bask. It felt like basking was a commodity. Sure, he could sit, but sitting wasn't the same as basking. It was hard to enjoy a leisurely sit at the park when a part of you was forever looking over your shoulder.

Neal had come to enjoy no longer having to remain on alert. It was nice, just relaxing on the wooden bench, staring up through the park's trees at the lazy clouds wandering by. Thoughts of running hovered on the horizon of his future, tried to butt in, but he wouldn't let them – not on a day like today. Today, it was all about the here and the now and enjoying it, as though tomorrow were a million miles away.

Tired of the clouds, Neal shifted his attention to the people passing by; families, couples, a woman on a bike, a man in a brown suit, but their features were obscured by the sunlight and shadows dappling their faces. It was only when the man in the suit, just standing there under the shade of an oak, took a sip from a familiar brown cup that Neal realized what was missing – a good cappuccino. Neal left the park and headed to his favorite coffee place.

A day off beyond the weekend was a commodity as well. Neal would never in a million years revel over Peter getting time off to nurse a sprained ankle, but deep inside a secret guilty part of him was glad for it. Between this whole deal with the manifest, Mozzie a broken record hounding Neal to pick something to fence, and their last case that turned into two weeks of fast talking and still having to run for his life, Neal had needed the break. He'd taken a nap the other day. The only time he'd ever taken a an honest to goodness, deep-enough-to-dream nap was on the flight back from Copenhagen and after he'd been drugged at the Howser Clinic.

A cup of his favorite cappuccino in hand, Neal meandered his way back to the park where he'd seen a small troupe of actors prepping for a little Shakespeare. The troupe performed in the same place, usually at the same times, often enough for people to anticipate it, and while the actors pieced together their stage of two-by-fours and store-bought curtains, patrons laid out blankets and set out baskets of food. It would be a fun way to pass the time until his appointment at the Burkes' for dinner, followed by an evening swim at the gym. Neal settled himself on a bench giving him an unobstructed view of not only the small stage but his fellow on-lookers; families, couples, kids and a man in a suit standing under the shade of a tree, holding a familiar brown cup.

\-------------------------

Caffrey was unreal. A genius, a connoisseur of the arts, friend to the head of the white collar unit, athletic but lean. He should have hated Caffrey on principle for being everything most people wanted to be, and then some. But hate didn't seem feasible as he watched Caffrey cut through the water of the gym's Olympic-sized pool, strokes as smooth as the silk ties Caffrey adored so much. He was fascinated. Not sexually, not even intimately. It was purely aesthetic, what he was feeling. He'd read up on the crimes Neal was suspected of, familiarized himself with what Neal was capable of, of the impossible things he made possible, and he had found it beautiful.

Caffrey reached the edge of the pool on and hauled himself out, taking a break, flanks and chest heaving like a self-satisfied race horse, tired but happy, athletic but lean.

He frowned. All that perfection made him itch. Caffrey was like a character borne out of a movie or a book, stepping from fiction fully formed. He was tempted, so damn tempted, to step forward out of the shadows and clip Neal's shoulder with the back of his hand, just to see if he was real.

But Neal slid back into the water and swam lazily away.

\---------------------

“It's futile, Neal. It's always been futile. And, yet, still you try.”

“It's watercolor, Moz,” Neal said, examining the art shop's collection of midnight blues and royal blues with mild dissatisfaction. They were not only too dark, they were like a single color hiding behind an alias.

“You'd have more luck breaking into Fort Knox.”

Neal mostly ignored the statement, all eyes for the rainbow array of tiny tubes washing over his mind in a wave of colors and possibilities. He smiled, pleased at finally finding cobalt blue and being able to add it to the five other tubes of other colors piled in the corner of the shopping basket.

“Good thing this is just a hobby and not breaking and entering,” Neal said. He smiled again on finding a pine green. “Besides, what about my watercolors has been futile? Kate always liked them. Sara likes them. Elizabeth likes them. June likes them...”

“Only because they'd rather not hurt your feelings,” Mozzie said, arms crossed with finality. Neal chuckled to himself while he added one color after another to the small pile. Mozzie didn't approve of any of Neal's purchases unless it happened to be wine or anything they could use in a job. Had it been oils in Neal's basket, Mozzie would have been giddy as a kid in a candy store. But watercolors were and always had been Neal's guilty artistic pleasure. Although guilty was probably the wrong choice of words. He had never forged a watercolor, at least not for any switch, so the better way to put it would be “innocent” pleasure.

Neal liked watercolors, the softness, the wistfulness – like looking into a dream, happy or sad. There was just something so peaceful about it, and most of the time he didn't care if his works were superb or mediocre at best, it was a relaxing challenge.

But he was an artist, fresh soil for the seeds of doubt, and for a gut clenching moment, he was tempted to switch water colors for oils just to hear some encouragement and make the seeds go away.

Doubt turned into annoyance, one moment changing to the next in which his skin heated in irritation at Mozzie's insistence, making Neal regret he hadn't left sooner and avoided Mozzie's sporadic arrival. But Neal kept his smile fixed in place like he always did, pretending to ignore Mozzie's words, and added three more colors to the pile.

A chill slithered down Neal's spine, snapping his body straight and his head up like a hound catching a scent. His gaze darted all over his surroundings. Moz took quick notice and mirrored him.

“What? What is it? What?”

The little art shop was nearly empty, only them, the cashier, a woman in purple with more purple streaked in her hair, and the people flowing by the windows.

“Nothing,” Neal said.

\----------------------

Even Caffrey's posture was perfect; spine erect but not stiff, head held high and shoulders back but not a strutting peacock. His was the stance of absolute self-assurance, his smile the smile of a man with the world in the palm of his hand, as though misery and sorrow _things_ that didn't compute.

But he imagined that if Neal was sorrowful, it would be perfect, too. He'd read what happened to the girlfriend, Kate, had heard the tales of a star-crossed lover losing the thing he loved. But he couldn't begin to imagine what that must have looked like, if a broken and hurting Neal was even possible, because all he saw was that posture and that smile.

Did Neal cry for Kate? Did he sob, his face slicked with tears and snot, putting a dent in the perfection?

Did Neal Caffrey cry?

He wanted to touch him, pick up the pace and clip him hard in the arm to see him flinch. But the short guy was in the way. Then his phone started to buzz. It was time to get back. Caffrey was going to have to wait.

\----------------------

Peter wondered what it said about him that he'd actually missed gleaning through mortgage fraud case files. He blamed it on sitting around at home doing nothing but watching whatever game happened to be on TV. He liked to relax as much as the next guy but relaxing was always so much more rewarding after a day of having accomplished something, and with a twisted ankle he hadn't been able to so much as fix the sink, and it had brought on an early bout of cabin fever.

Now his ankle was healed, he was back at work, had gone through thirty case files and it was almost lunch, time for a well earned break. Setting case file number thirty-one aside, he caught himself before hopping carelessly to his feet (the ankle might have been better, but he'd still been instructed to go easy on it) and eased himself up instead. Peter headed from his office into the bullpen toward Neal, thoroughly engrossed in whatever number case file he happened to be on.

Peter's hand fell on Neal's shoulder. He didn't even have his mouth open to announce it was lunch time when Neal did a full-body jolt so hard it sent him rolling back a whole three feet. Peter quickly snatched his hand away like it had been burned, staring at Neal trying feebly to recover from the reaction.

“Feeling a little skittish, there, Neal?” Peter said carefully, watching him just as carefully. In all the years Peter had worked with Neal – hell, in all the years he'd been chasing Neal – he'd never even thought it possible for the great and unflappable Neal Caffrey to ever be jumpy. And that put Peter on high alert.

“Sorry,” Neal said, rubbing one hand across his eyes. “Sorry. I don't know why I did that.”

“Well I'm sure there's a reason, one I sincerely hope you plan to share with me. People don't jump like that for no reason, Neal.”

“Yeah, I know,” Neal said, almost snappish Peter could have sworn. But when he looked back up at Peter, his expression was almost imploring. “I swear, Peter, nothing's going on.” He furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “At least I don't think anything's going on. I don't know why I'm jumpy I just... am.” And by the way he ended that sentence on a long exhale, he too realized how lame it sounded.

Peter sighed. As much as he knew better, and as much as his brain still on high alert scolded him not to, Peter decided to cut the kid a little slack. “Maybe you're just hungry. Come on, time for lunch. I'll even let you pick the place as long it's within my budget.”

That seemed to perk Neal up considerably, making it twice as tempting to assume that he wasn't actually up to something. But three days off and the kid still looking tired and wired at the same time wouldn't let Peter. A subdued Neal was a Neal you couldn't let your guard down around. Technically you could never let your guard down where Neal was concerned, but some days it was possible to relax that guard more than others.

Except lately. Which was why as soon as they were in the car, Peter brought it back up. Or was about to when Neal opened his mouth first.

“Are you having me tailed?”

Peter chuffed until he realized Neal was being serious. “What? No! Why would I even need to put a tail on you when your tracker's working just fine?”

Neal shrugged. “I don't know. To learn the more intimate details of my life?”

“Yeah, I think I pretty much know the intimate details. Well, the ones I need to know about. The ones I _want_ to know about.” Except for the one he would like to know about, concerning a certain treasure, but when it came to the deeper, darker secrets of Neal Caffrey, patience was a virtue and silence golden. Coming to know the truth was a waiting game Peter had played enough to know how to bide his time.

Mostly, though, he just didn't want to get into it, to wonder, again if he'd jumped to conclusions or if Neal had finally broken the promise of never having lied to Peter.

“Why would you think I'm having you tailed?” He narrowed his eyes that flickered between Neal and the road. “What's going on? Is someone following you.”

But Neal only shrugged. “I don't know. Feels that way.”

“ _Feels_ that way?”

“Yes, feels.” Neal huffed. “And it's a feeling I've been having all week.”

“Sure Mozzie's paranoia isn't starting to rub off on you?” Peter asked.

Neal smiled. “I think it's rubbed off on me as much as it's going to.”

“Let me, guess – not enough to his liking?”

The smile turned into a smirk, then was just as quickly dropped. “Let's just say being watched is a feeling I've gotten to know – intimately.”

“No surprises there.”

Neal didn't argue this. “Therefore, it's a feeling I know well. And from what I've been feeling, that's the only way I can describe it. You've got your gut instinct, Peter, and I've got mine. And mine's telling me I need to pay better attention to my surroundings.”

“And have you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And I'll have to get back to you on that. It's New York, Peter. If you want to spot a specific face in the crowd, you have to know what you're looking for, and I have no idea what I'm looking for. If there's even anything _to_ look for.”

Peter remained silent as he digested this. His knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss it as Mozzie's distrust being contagious, or Neal not getting enough sleep, or the stress of harboring one too many secrets. But for him to argue against gut instinct would only make him a hypocrite. There was always a certain amount of instinct borne out of whatever one's profession, and the more of a gamble the profession, the sharper the instinct. If law enforcement and living a life of crime had one thing in common, it was the danger factor, and Neal hadn't gotten as far as he had, doing what he did on luck and charm alone. To argue against Neal's instincts would be bordering on stupid.

“I suppose I could have someone tail you to see if you're being tailed. Maybe post someone outside of June's. Other than that...”

“Yeah, I know,” Neal sighed. “Not much you can do about it.”

“Sorry.”

Neal waved it off. “Maybe Mozzie _is_ rubbing off on me.” He grinned, though it seemed more self-deprecating than humorous. “But at least if I vanish, you'll know why.”

Peter snorted derisively.

\---------------------

They were eating, talking and laughing like old friends rather than cop and robber, and it was both wrong and mesmerizing. Neal was like a wizard or a witch, the villain of fairy tales casting blinding spells, and _he_ was the only one gifted to see through the glamor.

He left Caffrey and Burke to their illusion of camaraderie, because lunch was nearly over, and he had things to do.

It was wrong, so very wrong and would get him into so much trouble, and yet he didn't care. It would mean the end of his career, his freedom, because sooner or later, he knew he would be caught.

Unless he wasn't. Unless he could be perfect like Caffrey and cast his own spells. To know Caffrey, maybe you could become Caffrey and be perfect so that even if caught, it wouldn't matter, because the world would still be yours for the holding.

He wouldn't know until he tried.

\-----------------

There was only so much you could do to shake a possible tail when you only had a two-mile radius to work with. Neal altered his route home, taking the long way, sometimes using a cab, then switching it for the subway. The trick wasn't just losing the tail but putting yourself in a position where the tail had less of a chance to try anything. Sometimes the creeping feeling that came with being watched wasn't there, other times it was and other times it felt like whoever was doing the watching was right at Neal's back.

Mozzie tried to help, calling in a few favors and enlisting a few friends to do what Peter had tried to offer – to follow Neal to see who was following him. A much better course of action, Mozzie had said, because suits were a lot easier to spot than the guys who made a business out of moving through the populace unseen. But whoever was watching had either caught on, knew what they were doing or didn't make stalking a 24/7 habit; Mozzie's tails didn't have a whole lot to report that was all that helpful.

“Sure this isn't about the treasure?” Mozzie said over his third glass of red wine.

Neal, at his easel, touching up his recent watercolor, rolled his eyes. “Not everything is about the treasure, Moz.” It was both a scene and a portrait of the New York crowds, as though capturing them on canvas could shake up the recesses of his brain and produce a face he had seen once too often but had yet to realize.

“Au contraire, Neal,” Mozzie said, his voice edging toward hard. “Very much au contraire. If someone knows and thinks you're the key to finding it, they might grow impatient – so impatient they decide brute force a more productive option.”

Neal hated to admit it, but Mozzie had a point.

“It's either that, or the Suit lied,” Mozzie said. “And does have a tail on you.”

“He wouldn't lie, Moz.”

“He would if he was fed up – no pun intended.”

“I would know it,” Neal said. Peter being an undercover agent had a silver tongue of his own, but where Neal preferred to deflect and dance around the truth, Peter preferred telling it straight or saying nothing at all. Peter also liked being honest with Neal, mostly to teach Neal the benefits of telling the truth, and possibly with a smidgen of not wanting to look like a hypocrite on the side.

“Then I pin this on some over-eager rookie wanting to please the almighty Peter Burke,” Mozzie said. He tossed back the last of the wine in his glass, which meant he was buzzed but not yet drunk. “I'm going to head home, see if I can't hack into some video feed of your various haunts.” He pointed a stern finger at Neal. “Don't go anywhere.”

“Hadn't planned on it,” Neal said bitterly. He was itching to go swimming, having missed doing so the past two nights, but thankfully not to the point of dismissing common sense just to satisfy routine.

Once Mozzie was gone, Neal set about cleaning up. It was a new habit, bleeding off the energy normally shed after a few laps around the gym pool. He wiped the counters, swept the floor, then bundled the full trash out the door to the bin situated just outside the gate since tomorrow was trash day.

Neal tossed the trash into the bin. Then, so sudden that it was a second before Neal really felt it, something stung his neck. His hand reached up and felt a thin, alien object stuck in his skin. It was then that he felt a sensation, like ice spreading through his veins. He started to fall, and before blacking out completely, felt arms catching him before he hit the pavement.

\--Part Two--

Peter stared at the tracking anklet sitting idly in the middle of the sidewalk, a full block away from June's house. A CSI flashed pictures. When done, another CSI lifted the anklet between thumb and forefinger and dusted it for prints. It looked scuffed in places, a piece of it chipped along the edge, which probably meant it had been tossed.

Peter averted his gaze to the cell phone in his hand.

 _Come on, Mozzie, call._

“June was right to assume Neal had been taking out the trash,” Diana said, coming up from behind. Peter didn't bother turning around, waiting for her to walk up next to him instead. “The top trash bag has empty paint tubes in it and a sack from that Thai place he loves.”

Peter nodded. “Nothing else?”

“Nothing else. If he packed, then he packed light and left an unfinished painting behind.”

Peter nodded again, hope warring with dread in his chest and his mind still urging his damn cell phone to ring. He'd called El fifteen minutes ago, being the only one other than Neal capable of reaching Mozzie (and who Mozzie would actually call back). If Mozzie didn't call...

The only noise June had heard other than the door opening and closing was the squeal of tires peeling away. She'd called Peter one minute after the call from the Marshals that Neal's anklet had been cut.

 _Call, Mozzie, damn it, call!_

“Peter...” Diana began, voice one part forceful but two parts concerned.

“I know,” Peter said. “I know, but I'm not ready to rule this as Neal running just yet.”

Except he wanted this to be Neal on the run. Help him, he hoped that Neal had run, because if he hadn't...

The conflict was tying him in knots, pushing him toward nausea. The CSI placed the anklet in a plastic bag and sealed it. The cuff was still covered in fingerprint dust, the fingerprints many because it took some maneuvering for Neal to get his socks on. They didn't mean anything yet.

Peter turned and started back to the point of focus – June's trash bin. He could see police lights flashing not too far off.

“Neal thought he was being followed,” Peter told Diana. Diana's eyebrow arched high up her forehead.

“He saw someone?” she asked.

“No,” Peter growled. “There was no proof, just a feeling. But it made him nervous enough to scrap most of his daily routines. Damn it, I knew I should have set up surveillance!”

Diana shook her head. “You can't blame yourself, boss. One, we still don't know what this is, if he ran or if he was taken. Two, I'm pretty sure the only way Hughes would have let you use FBI resources was if you thought Neal was going to pull something.”

“Exactly, I could have told him I thought Neal was going to pull something.” He halted, stopping Diana with him with a hand on her arm, and looked at her. “Neal was spooked. I've never seen him spooked, not like this. Proof or no proof, he felt something was wrong and it was enough to scare him.” He sighed. “We need to keep an open mind until we know more, treat it as both an escape and a kidnapping. We need–”

Peter's phone chirped and he nearly dropped it in his fumble to answer it. “Burke, what?”

“What the hell have you done to Neal, you damn Fed!”

For a moment no longer than a heartbeat, the knot in his chest loosened. Neal hadn't run. He couldn't have, not without Mozzie.

The knot tightened just as quickly.

Neal _hadn't_ run.

Peter thought he was going to be sick.

\---------------------

Neal woke up not remembering having fallen asleep. He felt thick, fuzzy, with a sour tang coating his mouth; not like a man after a good night's rest, but a man shaking off the last remnants of a drugging – and how sad was it that he'd been drugged enough times in his life to know the difference?

Then the drugging took a back seat to the fact that there was only darkness, thick and unyielding. He panicked, his heart like a jackhammer in his chest. His hands flailed, groping wildly in his mindless need to orient himself. Knuckles collided with a coarse wall on his right, palm slapping something soft beneath him, then something metal further down. A wall and a bed. He stretched his arm down as far as it would go until it hit cold concrete – a floor.

Defining his space did nothing to calm his terror. Maybe it was dark but maybe he had gone blind, and there was no possible way he would ever calm down until he found out which. Crawling like the desperate man he was, Neal slid trembling from the bed to the floor, feeling his way forward until he hit the next wall. He used it to climb to his feet, and followed it, giving shape to the impenetrable black in his mind.

There was an indent in the adjacent wall, a space of cool metal instead of rough cement – a door. He felt around the frame, found the rectangle of plastic where a light switch should have been but no switch. Neal's heart beat harder, shivers dancing down his spine. He felt onward: the bed colliding painfully with his shins; something slick and cold, with metal pieces – too high to be a toilet so had to be a sink; his bare toes collided with something on the floor, in the floor. He bent and felt around it – a grate, its openings wide. He quickly snatched his hand away when he considered what it might be for. He went back to the wall, stretching as much as he could until his fingertips brushed the ceiling and searched it for a light, a bulb, anything, but found nothing.

Neal exhaled in shuddering relief. Not blind, then. He groped his way back to the door and pounded on it.

“Hey. Hey! Anyone there?! I'm awake. Time to come and tell me what the _hell_ it is you want from me!” Which was probably a bad idea, but Neal didn't care. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, better to deal with it now and know what he was up against rather than suffer the wait.

Neal slammed both fists against the barrier. “ _Hey!_ ”

Nothing. He pressed his ear to the door. Still nothing.

“Fine, be that way,” Neal said flippantly as though the darkness and silence were a trifle easily brushed aside; like he wasn't balancing poorly on the precipice of mindless terror. He felt with shaking hands and legs until he found the bed and sat down, gripping the edge to lessen the tremors in his body.

A thousand possibilities of what this was and who might be behind it chased each other through his brain. Old marks, old partners, people wronged, people in need of his particular skills and people looking to one up him, or something else altogether. Except people looking to use him would have been here by now, while people looking for revenge would be taunting him over some sort of comm. Those going for one-upmanship were usually the most patient. So were the ones with “something else” in mind. And that he'd been kidnapped enough times to know the game was yet another sad commentary on his life, one that made him chuckle nervously while the tremors traveled up his arms to his shoulders.

His anklet was gone, he could feel it, or not feel it, its former weight a ghost of sensation on his leg.

Neal was on his own.

“Fine,” he whispered. He would get himself out. He always did. Probably the only positive commentary on his life he could think of right now.

\-------------------------

He came home only to leave again and head straight to the place and the room the sole purveyor of surveillance. His sights went right to the monitors that glowed in various shades of night-vision green, and Caffrey feeling desperately around the bed. He was searching for things he could use to escape, wires to pick locks or a weapon, perhaps. Did even the passive Caffrey touch weapons when cornered? He was learning so much already.

He turned his attention to monitor two and reversed the footage three hours back to when Caffrey had woken up, and watched with joy the slow metamorphoses of confusion, terror, desperation, anger and determination. Caffrey had been a busy boy. But though the color of the night vision cameras was limited, the clarity was perfect. Caffrey had found nothing to use as a means of escape, not even a piece of wire.

He wasn't an idiot; you didn't need all that many resources nor a whole lot of time to make a room escape proof, only the right know-how and a couple of websites.

He squinted, backtracking to Neal waking, and he squinted harder at what looked like trembling in the hands and shoulders. He smiled. He was learning so much.

Except what if Caffrey was faking it to throw him off guard? What if Neal was _that_ good? He couldn't be sure. It was time for phase two.

\------------------

“I never thought I'd see the day when you'd become one of the paranoid masses,” Mozzie said, fingers dancing over the laptop keys - _Peter's_ laptop, which handing it over to Mozzie had felt not unlike pouring flesh eating ants all over himself. What made it even worse, like pouring on meat sauce to get the ants excited, was that he had given it to Mozzie in order to keep what they were doing under wraps. Because right now, Peter didn't trust anyone, not the Marshals, not even the FBI.

Someone had taken Neal in the dead of night while Neal was taking out the trash, and no one had been there to see it. That hadn't been luck, that had been careful planning, the kind of planning that would have taken days of following Neal to get to know his habits and routines, to know when he would be home and when he wouldn't, when the garbage truck picked up the trash, and when Neal would be vulnerable.

It was on a whim – or perhaps a hard lesson learned from past experience – that Peter (or more specifically Mozzie, and Sally, currently working from her end at whatever passed as her safe house) dug more deeply into Neal's tracking data. At this point, with no new leads to go on and nothing gleaned from the criminal world according to Mozzie, it was now all about narrowing down possibilities. Hughes had been sympathetic, still siding with the idea that Neal had run, but also having learned hard lessons himself. He had given Peter enough benefit of the doubt to handle the case how he saw fit, up to keeping mum about what he was doing in case someone on their end was involved. Not even Diana and Jones knew, in the event that there was backlash. The whole Fowler/Mentor/OPR situation remained like an itchy scar on the Bureau's backside.

Mozzie had been all kinds of giddy, as though this were personal payback to “The Man.” It probably was, knowing Mozzie, who never missed an opportunity to pin everything and anything bad that happened to Neal on the Feds. Right now, however, he was a little man on a mission, sitting at the Burkes' table with a Bluetooth in his ear and a lazing Satchmo sprawled at his feet. Crap, Peter hoped Mozzie hadn't put his money where his mouth was by bragging about never being traced, and that Sally's lack of presence was simply to avoid being in a Fed's house, not because there was a risk they'd get caught.

“Right, right...” Mozzie said, no longer talking to Peter. “Yeah, I see it. Okay, so, it looks like all the IP addresses match those on the list you gave me.” Since Peter had wanted to limit the amount of hacking-into-very-top-secret-and-illegal things (that Mozzie would love nothing more than to get his hands on), Peter had obtained a list of those in charge of checking Neal's anklet data. It wasn't a long list: Peter, Diana, Jones, two other agents, the Marshal who had helped Peter catch Neal, and two Marshals whose job it was to monitor anklet activity.

“Exceeept,” Mozzie said, leaning in closer to squint at the screen. “Yeah, there. We definitely have activity starting a little while back, before Neal started getting the I'm-being-targeted heebie-jeebies. Problem is, the IPs are different, and that means whoever it is was bouncing from computer to computer.” He sighed, slumping. “Which means things are going to get tedious. If this person is smart – and, I'm sorry to say, I have the bad feeling they are – then they wouldn't have used a single computer, making it easy for us to backtrack. They would have mixed it up and used whatever computers were available to them while far from the point of real interest.”

Peter rubbed his chin then leaned on the table to get a look at the data. “But we have the dates when whoever did this logged in. So even if they borrowed someone's laptop at a local cyber cafe or stole someone's password and username–”

Mozzie perked up, “If wherever he or she used a computer had surveillance–”

“Then we might be able to finally put a face to Neal's stalker.” Then Peter huffed a prematurely tired breath. “But you're right. This is going to be tedious.”

They still had no idea if whoever took Neal had a time limit. Until they knew more, they worked as though Neal had no time at all.

\-----------------

When you stared into the dark long enough, you saw things. Floaters, sparks of lights, and shapes always changing, always morphing from one thing to the next, like images on the edge of dreaming. Closing your eyes only made it worse, turned them vivid and ugly, like monsters reaching out for you.

Neal wandered the room, feeling his way and filling his head with the shape of his space. He imagined the mattress, thin, maybe striped and stained. The coarse blanket was blue, sometimes green or brown like the blankets police gave you after a traumatic experience – like the blanket wrapped around his shoulders at the back of the ambulance after Kate's plane blew up and before he was arrested. It had been so cold that day. He had been so cold. This room was so cold, making it hard to stop shivering.

He imagined the sink and its tap, rust stained but not so old it was dripping. It was his only source of water. He imagined the grate, wet with urine. He imagined what must be on the other side of the door – a warehouse, maybe, or an old basement of cement blocks and water stains. He imagined escape scenarios that all ended with him charging at whoever walked through that door. Sometimes he knocked them out, sometimes they pulled a gun and shot him, sometimes there was more than one person tackling him back. He imagined the hunger pains in his empty stomach like a beast threatening to devour him inside out.

Neal imagined a lot of things about the here and now, because anything else was too painful. It didn't stop the shapes moving in the dark, reaching for him, even when he closed his eyes.

\-----------------

Waiting was a one player game. Neal had all the time in the world but _he_ didn't. He wasn't stupid, and knew that sooner or later things would come to head and he would no longer be able to keep Neal. But to play this right, he had to be patient.

He waited a day and a night, then half a day, unsteady with frayed nerves as he forced himself to act as though everything was just fine. He practically ran to the place when his work was done, so close to screaming his impatience as he carefully prepared Neal a meal he was sure Neal would like, burying it in spices and herbs to cover the taste of the medicine. He arrived at Neal's cell with the food still warm, slid it through the slot at the bottom of the door – a slot only he could open with the press of a button on a remote control – then hurried to the surveillance room and sat, leaning forward, shaking with anticipation.

He had left the slot open to give Neal just enough light to eat by. The man was hungry, but fighting the hunger long enough to peer through the slot as though it, too, were food, then wolfed the meal down, not caring that he had to use his fingers – chicken Parmesan, steamed vegetable, French bread and a bottle of water.

He would have been kind, given Neal some wine, but the medicine had warned that it was not to be taken with alcohol.

Neal was halfway through the meal when he started to waver. He must have overdone it with the dosage. The plate fell from Neal's hand, scattering food across the floor. Neal tried to rise only to drop back to his knees, forced to crawl. Neal seemed to be searching, and he wondered what Neal thought he would find, what Neal hoped to accomplish.

Neal fell to his side and stopped moving.

He waited, clenching and unclenching his hands, waiting for deceit, but Neal didn't move. Four minutes of self-torment later, he ran from his chair to the cell. Slowly, cautiously, he opened the door. He approached Neal's body and kicked at the limp, bare feet. He knelt, reaching out, and felt Neal's pulse at his neck.

Neal remained still. Now or never. He moved Neal's body, one limb at a time, onto the bed and covered it, tucking Neal in like a parent would a child.

He watched, in the poor lighting from outside the cell as Neal slept. He put his hand in front of Neal's mouth and felt his warm breath, ran his fingers through Neal's hair, moved his hand to Neal's chest and felt his heartbeat, felt the rise and fall of working lungs. Even Neal Caffrey had to sleep, to eat, to breathe, needed a heart to pump blood through his body.

He snatched his hand away when Neal groaned. Neal's legs writhed under the covers, one leg kicking back as though on reflex. He smiled. Even Neal Caffrey had dreams, and those dreams made Neal restless. He wondered, fancied, what helped calm Neal down. He leaned forward and rubbed Neal's back. Neal stilled.

He smiled. He was learning so much. But it wasn't enough. Time for phase three.

\--------------------

Peter was sick all over again.

They'd found each of the computers, and every one of them was inside the Federal building. It was an inside job.

An _inside job_.

Peter had nearly put his fist through a wall when IP address one through three led straight to computers in the office; some of them personal computers, some of them borrowed laptops from the Tech department, but all of them property of the FBI.

“This is getting old,” Hughes growled when Peter told him.

“It got old the moment it began. Now it's just a _joke_ ,” Peter growled back as he paced. The temptation to punch something – drywall or glass, he didn't care – was overwhelming.

Someone had used their resources to hack into Neal's anklet data, follow him and take him. Someone part of an organization meant to protect had used that organization to hurt. And they still didn't know who that someone was.

Agents borrowed each other's computers on occasion, because they new each other, trusted each other. Sometimes people forgot to ask, taking the computer nearest them for some emergency purpose that would only take a second and knowing so-and-so wouldn't mind. They weren't supposed to, but they did.

That was going to change, Peter knew. So much was going to change, making life more difficult and people more paranoid.

“I've had plenty of agents express their dislike of having Neal on staff,” Hughes said. “I'm thinking we may need to add them to the list.”

Peter nodded. Right now, a personal grudge was the only motive that made sense. For all they knew, more than one could be involved, which was why the list kept getting longer.

But the list wasn't the problem. Interrogating their own people was. They had to be subtle, slick, avoid tipping the culprit or culprits off and give them a reason to kill Neal. Peter had had to clear Jones and Diana, _Jones and Diana_ – Jones who had been in the van with plenty of witnesses to confirm it when Neal was taken, and Diana with Christie helping out with a party for the kids in the children's ward of the hospital – in order to enlist their help. People liked Jones and opened up to him easily, while Diana was good at reading body language and facial cues.

Calling it tedious had been the understatement of the year. This was silent chaos.

\--------------------

Neal woke up with a splitting headache and a gut reacting as though it had been kicked. He barely launched from the bed and staggered to the grate in time before his stomach was rebelling, heaving up the little he'd managed to eat. He fell to his knees in mid-heave, and when he finished, bowed himself in trembling exhaustion. It was a moment before he found the strength, let alone the will, to grope to the sink and rinse out his mouth.

Then he remembered the food, the bottle of water, the slot spilling sickly light across the floor. He pushed from the sink and staggered until he hit the door. Tracing the edge of the frame, he made his way down and felt out the lines that marked the slot. But it didn't matter how deep he dug his nails in, pulling until they bent, the slot wouldn't move. Not even budge enough to let in a sliver of light.

Neal rested his forehead against the door, panting from the lingering nausea, headache and effort. Having seen light and lost it made the dark even thicker, like molasses. He could have sworn he felt it, like cold, thick ink pressing against his back, face, chest, pouring into his mouth and down his lungs. He choked as though it were the darkness choking him, coughed as though hacking it up. The shapes in the darkness undulated around him, reaching out to strangle him. A flash of movement here, a flicker there, his stuffed head not knowing what he was seeing, and he swatted at a shape that felt too close.

“What do you want?” he croaked. He gulped in a lung full of heavy, cloying air “What the hell do you want!”

No answer.

Neal threw himself back away from the door, stretched out his legs and kicked at the slot but it still wouldn't move. But then, he couldn't even be sure he was hitting it.

Then his addled brain cleared a little more, and he remembered falling asleep while eating. He hadn't been able to help it, the lethargy coating his bones and brain like lead, too sudden to be real fatigue.

Panic filled Neal's chest until he couldn't breathe. He checked himself as best he could in the dark, felt beneath his shirt for cuts or bruises he hadn't been aware of, his pants to make sure they hadn't been hastily put back on. He paused, fighting against his own rapid breaths, to focus on what his body had to tell him but felt nothing – no aches or pains that would come with being... being...

Neal couldn't bring himself to think about it. But without any light, without knowing how much time had passed and whether being _used_ came with a shot of painkillers, he couldn't be sure of anything. The what-ifs balled up his gut until he crawled his way back to the grate, just in case.

As he knelt there, waiting, the only sounds the rasp of his breath and the kettle-drum beat of his heart, he felt it.

That unease, the twitching muscles in his back, that cold down his spine.

Someone was watching him.

Neal slowed his breathing. There! The whisper of breaths out of sync with his own.

“I know you're here,” Neal said with a bravado he didn't feel. It was the wrong thing to say when not seconds after something cold and sharp pressed itself to the front of his throat.

“Get up, slowly,” A voice said in his ear, and his breath caught upon hearing someone else's voice after nothing but the oppressive silence he'd endured for what felt like days. He rose, letting the pressure of whatever was against his neck guide him.

“Don't move,” the voice said. Feet scraped and tapped against the concrete, but the knife barely moved. Something warm pressed against his chest and it didn't take him long to realize it was a hand. Neal took an alarmed step back.

“I said don't move!”

Neal stilled. The hand pressed harder into his chest.

“There,” the voice said. “That's more like it.” The voice chuckled. “It's really racing. And you're shaking.” The chuckle became a laugh. “You're _shaking_.”

The blade moved, trailing down his neck to his collarbone. On purpose or because the owner of the voice was distracted, Neal didn't know, but his breathing increased, faster and faster until his head began to swim. He couldn't think, couldn't move, certain that if he did the knife would bury itself under his jaw or in his heart. Lights sparked in his eyes and the air's thickness intensified until it was molasses filling his lungs.

“No, no, no,” the voice said soothingly, kindly. “It's okay, calm down. I'm not going to hurt you. Nice, steady breaths. Can't have you passing out and hurting yourself.”

Neal did as told only because he didn't want to pass out and let this creep do whatever he wanted to him.

“That's it,” the voice coddled. “Nice and easy. You're okay. Now take two steps back and sit down.”

Neal did, and felt like he was falling, jolting in alarm when he met the thin mattress of the bed rather than the cold, hard floor. It also established something – whoever this was, they could see Neal. They must have been wearing night vision goggles, and Neal almost laughed, wondering if they shopped at the same Russian surplus store as Mozzie.

“Drink,” the voice said. Something cold and plastic was pressed into Neal's hand. He felt its shape and texture until he found the cap, untampered when he twisted it and it cracked. He took a long pull of water that didn't taste like metal.

“That's it,” the voice cooed. “You're doing good, Neal.”

Neal flinched at the familiar use of his name, but if he recognized the voice his brain wasn't coughing up a face to go with it. “What do you want?” he gasped when he was done drinking.

“Just you, Neal.” There was beeping, like a watch going off. “I have to go. I'm sorry, Neal.”

Something stung Neal in his neck, then he was falling into a darkness deeper than the dark sliding around him.

\------------------

It was odd how the feel of Neal's heart galloping under his palm had been the greatest feeling of his life. The perfect Neal Caffrey, locked in a cell, frightened and shaking like a cornered rabbit. Neal Caffrey, so smooth and calm, with the world in his hands, reduced to a puddle of frail, quivering humanity. Neal Caffrey, who could escape anything, unable to escape one stupid room.

It was odd how so much more beautiful it was than the façade of perfection.

On to the next phase.

\-------------------

There were five words that had been and would forever be music to Peter's ears.

“We've got something, boss.” It was Diana who said them, with Jones trailing behind her as they hurried into his office bearing the most beautiful sight in the world – files. Peter leaned forward, starving to hear more.

“We've managed to narrow the suspect list to four people,” Jones said. He scoffed. “Yeah, only took us three damn days to do it.” He slapped the files on Peter's desk and fanned them out, then tapped the one at the end. “This guy we especially like for it.”

“You check their schedules and you'll notice them taking odd hours right around the time Neal suspected someone was watching him,” Diana said. “Taking more night shifts or getting someone else to take their shifts for them. They're also all computer techs, two of them part of Cyber Crime. Any of them would have the skills to hack in.”

“But this guy,” Jones said, tapping on the last file, “started working regular hours about a day after Neal was taken. He's the only one. So we talked around, asked about it, and found out that he was the kind of guy who liked to work after hours.” Jones grinned. “Until recently. Now he's punching out the moment the clock hits five, no sooner, no later.”

“Think that's enough to dig deeper?” Diana asked.

“It's going to have to be,” Peter said, heart soaring with premature hope. “Let's find out what our fellow _suit_ has been up to.”

\-------------------

Neal woke up and he was getting tired of it. The headache, check. The nausea, check. But here was something new – he couldn't move his arms or legs. Well, he could, but not very far. Every time he did, something clanked and pulled hard at his wrists.

His heart stuck in his throat. He would know that cold, sharp feel anywhere, even in the dark.

Handcuffs. He'd been handcuffed to the bed, on his side.

“You're awake?” asked the voice. But the voice didn't wait for an answer, clammy hands pressing themselves over Neal's fluttering eyes. Neal jerked his head back.

“Don't touch me!” Neal spat.

“You're not exactly in a position to make demands, Neal,” the voice pointed out kindly, then sighed. “I'm sorry for this, Neal. For what I'm about to do, I mean.”

Neal froze, breaths going rapid. “What do you mean?”

“It's nothing personal, I promise. Just an experiment. I have to do it while I can. But I made sure to pick a place that should result in minimum damage. Don't want to do something that would send you to the hospital." There was a slight pause, then a mockingly scolding tsking noise. "Now, now. You're shaking again.”

“What – what are doing?” Neal stammered, shrinking back as far as his shackles would allow him to.

“Just a test. It'll be quick, I promise. Just a one time thing. Brace yourself.”

When it came, it came fast. Something buzzed through the air before impacting with curve of Neal's ribs, and the scream rushing from his throat caught, stumbling, on the air rushing from his lungs. The pain was like a fault splitting down his flank, cracking the bones, squeezing tears from his eyes and a sob from his chest. His body curled as much as it could against the source of the pain and he barely felt the bite of the cuffs against his wrists and ankles.

“I'm sorry, Neal,” the voice said. Gentle hands lifted his shirt and fingered his ribs. “Nothing feels broken.”

Neal begged to differ. Another sob escaped him. Those same gentle hands moved to his wrists, unlocking the cuffs and setting his hands on the bed. He did the same for Neal's ankles. Cold bit into Neal's skin along his side, raising goose flesh; the bastard had forgotten to lower his shirt. When that gentle hand touched Neal's head, he flinched violently.

“Rest,” the voice said. “You're doing well, Neal.”

Footsteps walking away, the door scraped and squealed open, blinding Neal with blessed light.

“No.”

The door squealed shut.

“No.”

Silence and darkness swallowed him.

“No!”

\------------------

He watched Neal scream against the dark, tugging his shirt down with clumsy hands, then rolling into a shivering ball. Was he weeping? Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought he heard breathless hiccupping, the sound you make when you didn't want anyone to hear you cry.

Neal was as human as any mere mortal. Quite a beautiful thing, this reality of Neal, this broken ball of flesh and bone and imperfection, grimy, bruised and shadowed with days of stubble. Neal was probably hungry, starving. He had to remember to feed Neal, now that he was awake. It was hard to keep a proper schedule when he had to keep drugging or hurting Neal every time he walked out of the cell. Poor boy must be famished.

He wondered if he could make Neal beg for food. Maybe that could be phase five, if there was time. Phase four first.

\------------------

“If this isn't something to check, nothing is,” Jones said from his desk. Diana and Peter joined him, leaning forward to see what he had.

“Bank statements,” Jones said. “Looks like he took out a big wad of cash. Oh, and would you look at this.” He switched to another tab. “Looks like he dumped that cash into some property. I even got the address.”

Peter clapped his hand on Jones' shoulder. “Good work, Jones.”

“I'll get the warrant,” Diana said, about to leave when Peter shook his head.

“No. This is still all circumstantial. Damn it, we'll need more if we want to get a warrant.”

“How're we going to do that?” Diana asked.

“I don't know,” Peter said, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “I don't–” he exhaled until his lungs emptied. So close. So damn close only for a wall of red tape to slam down between him and Neal. They could bring this guy in, question him until he cracked but there was no saying how long that would take, leaving Neal with no one to ensure he had water and food. And if they learned nothing, couldn't get this guy to open up and had to let him go...

Peter couldn't take that chance.

Jones checked his watch. “He should still be at work.”

“We don't have enough to bring him in.”

“I'm not talking about bringing him in,” Jones said, grinning. He held up his hand, a small transceiver pinched between two fingers. “I'm talking about doing what we do best – sit in a van.”

\-----------------

Neal woke, not realizing he'd passed out, to the whine and scrape of the door closing. He bolted upright, side twinging, and stilled his breathing. But his heart was beating too loudly. The shapes moved, growing, shrinking, some taking the shape of a man. There on the right. No, the left. No, in front of him.

“Are you here?” Neal asked.

The voice said nothing.

“Answer me, damn it!”

The voice didn't answer.

Neal lurched to his feet, taking a swing at the nearest human shape. His fist sailed through thin air. The man could see him, managed to duck and dodge him. Yet Neal kept swinging, scraping his knuckles on the wall.

“Answer me!”

The endless silence kept its secrets.

\--------------------

He watched the monitors and chuckled at Neal's wild, pointless swings. Poor kid. He was supposed to be smarter than this. He watched until Neal, exhausted, slammed his back into the wall across from the bed and slid down to the floor.

“Are you here?” Neal said – and did that sound like a plea? The great and perfect Neal Caffrey, begging?

That did it. That proved it.

Anyone could be Neal Caffrey.

 _Anyone_ , because Neal Caffrey was just another human being.

He got up from his seat and went to the cell. He didn't open the door, merely knocked on it.

“Neal? I'm sorry, Neal, but I was never in there.” He pressed his ear to the door and listened. He thought he heard hysterical laughter. Then there was a thud against the door hard enough to make it vibrate.

“You son of a bitch!”

“It was a test, Neal. Nothing personal. Only a test.”

“Why!”

“I have my reasons, they're... they're difficult to explain. It's – it's how you get to know someone, you see. Really know them. By breaking them down, taking away all their comforts and the things they know. If you want to know someone – really, truly know them – you have to remove them from their world. I wanted to see the truth of you, Neal, that's all. Just the truth.”

Silence.

“Neal? Neal, please answer me.”

But of course Neal wouldn't answer. He was asking it of him. Neal hated him, but that was okay.

“Would you like something to eat, Neal? It's been a while. You probably don't even know what day it is, poor kid.” If he didn't know any better, he could have sworn he heard a choked whimper. “It's okay, Neal, I'll bring you some food. Okay? You need your strength.”

He wouldn't of course, not yet. Phase five would start right now. He moved away to leave Neal with his hunger and the dark.

He turned right into the barrel of agent Peter Burke's gun.

\------------------

Neal twitched and shuddered and fought the urge to start rocking, only to realize he was already rocking. Back and forth, back and forth, spine against the wall, spine away from the wall, arms hugging his knees.

Never there, never there, never there. But he was there, a man-shape in the darkness, on the right, the left, up, down, all over the damn place, he was there, kind words echoing in Neal's head.

Days. Days had passed. Days and Neal hadn't even known it, even thought. He couldn't because it hurt too much and because he'd slept so much. It felt like the same day and a thousand years, seconds becoming hours becoming seconds. How long had the voice stopped taking? One minute or a lifetime? Neal rocked harder.

The door scraped and squealed open and Neal cringed into a ball, covering his eyes so he wouldn't be blinded.

“Neal?” a voice said. A warm hand touched his shoulder and he yelped, tightening his body, bracing himself for petting and touching or another hit.

“Neal! Come on, look at me, Neal.”

Neal squinted through his arms but saw only a human shape against the blinding light. He said without thinking, “Hurts to.”

“Ah, buddy, I'm sorry. I know it does. Wait, here, try this.”

Neal flinched when something was slipped onto his face.

“Easy, buddy, easy. It's just to help you out.”

And it finally hit Neal, that voice that wasn't like the other voice, because this voice he knew; this voice, that was gruff and caring at the same time, that made no mockery of kindness.

“Peter?”

The hand on his shoulder squeezed. “Yeah, Neal, it's me.”

Neal risked looking at Peter, but while the light behind him had been subdued by the sunglasses Peter had placed on his face, Peter was still just a shape – a shape Neal knew and so knew it wasn't a trick.

Terror, uncertainty, and the dark itself drained from Neal, taking with it all his tension and strength and melting him until his forehead pressed against the solid plane of Peter's chest. But it wasn't until he felt Peter's arms go around him, supporting him and keeping him from collapsing the rest of the way to the floor, mumbling a quiet and gentle “I've got you, Neal,” that he knew – he finally _knew_ \- it was over. Tears slid down Neal's face and he let them.

After Peter badgered him into telling him the truth as to whether or not he was hurt, Peter helped Neal climb to his unsteady feet and leave cell.

They were in a basement, industrial size with a maze of pipes along the water-stained ceiling and walls. Diana was there, and Jones with his hand on the shoulder of a nondescript man kneeling on the cold concrete floor.

“Craig Holston, you have the right to remain silent...”

The name meant nothing to Neal, the man familiar but the kind of familiar of a face you passed daily in the crowd, one face out of many faces, his brown hair neatly combed, his face pinched and dull, his build medium, height medium – an everyman, unmemorable and unremarkable.

But Neal knew his shape.

“Goodbye, Neal,” Craig said.

Neal knew that voice.

Then Neal was on him, this everyday man, pinning him to the wall by the lapels of his brown suit jacket, slamming him against it again and again while snarling through clenched teeth, “You don't know me!” Neal's arms were pinned to his sides and he was pulled bodily away while Diana and Jones hurried Holston out of the basement.

Once Holston was out of sight, Neal calmed. Not because he wanted to, but because he was passing out.

\-----------------

“That was smart, what you did,” Elizabeth said, rubbing her husband's curved back. “Slipping the radio into his pocket.”

“It was Jones' idea,” Peter said. He watched as Neal continued to sleep, stress, hunger and the explosion of mindless fury aimed at Holston having knocked him out for – Peter checked his watch – going on four hours, now.

“And Mozzie,” he went on. “He and June showed me how to slip something in just as easily as slipping something out. I honestly thought it had been a waste of time, then.”

Neal had an IV in his hand, feeding him fluids and nutrients. Especially nutrients. Neal had been gone six days: six days of close to no food, six days in the dark, nearly a week. It showed like a mockery in his sharpened cheekbones, his pale skin, and the shadows under his eyes. Six damn days.

“It shouldn't have taken so long,” Peter said. “The guy was right there, under our noses.” He shook his head. “He was one of us, another damn inside job, and we don't even know why except for some bull about getting to know the real Neal. Son of a bitch never even met Neal until he took him, he even said as much.”

“How did he know about him?” El asked.

“Most of the building knows about Neal. Hell, even the janitors know about him. Most of what we do may be under wraps but you'd be surprised how fast word spreads. And the IT guys are always coming and going. Maybe they didn't exchange names and handshakes but I'd bet a week's pay Neal probably said hi to this guy more than once. Neal says hi to everyone.”

Peter looked imploringly at his wife. “Is it wrong for me to think he would have been better off staying in prison?”

El pressed her lips in her “what do you think?” line. Peter nodded, attention back on Neal.

“Yeah, it's wrong, I know. But that's twice – _twice_ – one of our own screwed with us. And how the hell did a guy like Holston even come to work for us? He's a friggin' nut job.”

“Maybe he wasn't always a nut job,” El said, her hand warm and soft on Peter's back. “Maybe something happened to bring that part out into the open.”

“This shouldn't have happened.”

“I know.”

“So what do I do about it?”

El's hand slid to his shoulder and squeezed. “Be there for him.”

\--------------------

Neal woke up expecting darkness. Opening his eyes and being able to see rocked him physically just as much as mentally. He blinked, then stared, wondering with a fast beating heart if this was just a dream. But when he lifted his hand to scrub his face, he felt the pinch of a needle in his hand, the dull ache in his side where Voice had struck him. You don't feel in dreams, not like this. Dreams didn't smell of disinfectant and soap. Dreams were never this real.

Moisture pricked at his eyes and he quickly wiped it away before it had a chance to fall. There had been a moment when he'd been caught between asleep and awake, when he'd thought the rescue had been a dream, but here he was.

“Hey, you're awake. About time.”

Neal turned his head to Peter coming through the doorway with a smile on his face. Neal made a noise meant to be a laugh but trying to be a sob, and he quickly wiped his face again.

“Guess getting liberated can take a lot out of you,” he said, his voice thick. He dropped his hand to his side when he realized it was shaking.

But Peter Burke was a vigilant man even when he didn't need to be. He pulled the padded chair by the bed closer and sat. “You okay, Neal?”

“Just basking in the joy that is being out of that room,” Neal said. He chuckled, and this time it wasn't marred by attempted tears.

Peter nodded, lips pressed, seconds ticking away as awkward silence settled around them. Peter had a lot of work to do on his bedside manner, but he still earned plenty of points for the attempt. Right now, Neal didn't care if the silence stretched on to the end of visiting hours, because he wasn't alone.

“Do you need to talk about it or... want to talk about it or anything?” Peter asked. Not FBI Peter, because FBI Peter would have looked two percent hopeful. This Peter looked like he was trying not to flounder.

And that was good. It meant talking was a choice, not a necessity.

“Not yet,” Neal said quietly. To talk meant to think back and Neal wasn't ready. All he wanted was to focus on the here and now and pretend then didn't happen, whether for a day or a few hours, he didn't care. He didn't want to remember while he had the chance.

“Okay,” Peter said, head bobbing, awkward silence descending.

“I wouldn't mind hearing how you found me, though,” Neal said, saving the moment. Since he hadn't been there, it wouldn't be remembering, so he could handle it.

Peter huffed a breath. “Wasn't easy.” Then he smiled. “But it helps having a bunch of smart people on hand.”

\------------------------

Neal had no choice but to endure his convalescence at the Burkes', not because Peter said so (he did have certain limits when it came to ordering Neal around) but because the doctor said so. He was still anemic, his digestion still readjusting, and that meant constant supervision to make sure weakness didn't drop him face first.

But Neal wasn't an idiot. He knew it was just as much about the mental factor as the physical, if not more so. You don't spend a week in the dark tormented by a voice in the shadows without it screwing with your head.

Except Neal felt fine, or thought he felt fine. Tired, maybe, a little uncomfortable about being touched, but nothing he couldn't get over, he was sure.

Mozzie was there when he arrived, chastising Neal for having slept so much at the hospital, forcing Mozzie to a Fed's house just to talk to him and hear for himself how he was, then regale him with how he'd helped out. They ate, Mozzie went home, they watched TV, Neal decided to turn in early. He prepared for bed, skipping the relaxant the doctor had prescribed, tired enough that he was sure he didn't need it.

Neal turned off the light of the guest room and it hit him, squeezing like a vice around his heart and lungs – the darkness pouring around him like a flood. He clicked the light back on and gasped as though he really had been drowning.

He tried again, thinking he hadn't been as mentally prepared as he thought. The moment the darkness surrounded him, he couldn't breathe. Neal clicked the light back on, then off, then on. He kept at it, conditioning himself, proving to himself that there was nothing to fear in the dark.

“Neal?”

Neal flinched, clicking the light back on just as Peter stepped through the door, looking perplexed with a dash of suspicious.

“I thought you'd be asleep by now,” he said. He narrowed his eyes. “Did you take the pills?”

“I didn't think I'd need them,” Neal said, bracing himself for a lecture on the joys of listening to your doctor.

Peter leaned his shoulder up against the door frame, hands in his pockets as though settling in for a casual conversation.

“Apparently you do.”

“Yeah,” Neal said bitterly. “But I don't see them making much of a difference, not when I...” he bit the rest of the sentence off and looked away.

“When you turn off the light,” Peter finished for him, nodding. “But it probably wouldn't hurt to try. You could always just leave the light on if it doesn't work. Or...”

“Please don't suggest a night light.”

“Actually I was going to say have something in the room that glows, something that breaks up the darkness. I have a nephew, terrified of the dark, couldn't sleep a wink. So his parents tacked all this glow-in-the-dark stars and planets to his ceiling and he's been sleeping like a baby ever since.”

Neal's lips twitched toward a smile. “You wouldn't happened to have any glow-in-the-dark planets lying around, would you?”

“No but I do have a couple of glow sticks and a glow-in-the-dark frisbee – won it at the FBI raffle when we were raising money for charity. I was trying for a pair of Giants tickets. Anyway, maybe it'll help.”

“Maybe.”

Peter went to fetch his small glow-in-the-dark collection, and while doing so, Neal took a pill. He also opened the curtains to the window, where the night wasn't so dark thanks to the street lamps. After Peter brought the sticks and frisbee, Neal set them up around the room. When Peter left, Neal took a deep breath and turned off the light.

It wasn't so bad, the sticks and frisbee like little lamps, the window a box of soft blue touched with the pale amber of the streetlights, and the door outlined by the hall light. Neal slept, the fractured sleep broken by nightmares, but whenever he woke, there were his lights, green and blue, and the hall light still outlining the door.

Six in the morning, gasping and shivering awake from another dream, Neal lay there staring at the blue-gray square of window announcing the coming of dawn. Ironically, once the shivers had passed and the dream faded, Neal found himself content.

He was warm, safe, watching the coming of a new day that was going to be gorgeous and full of light, and basking in the fact that he wasn't alone, that he had people in his life who cared for him, looked out for him, and were ready to come when things went bad. It was a glorious feeling, stinging his eyes with tears that he quickly wiped away, only for more to take their place. He hadn't cried since Kate had died. And this time, it was because he was happy.

\---------------------

He hadn't needed phase five. He'd gained everything he needed, knew everything he needed, and filed Neal Caffrey away in his head.

But he couldn't explain why, when he tried to escape just like Neal had escaped, he couldn't make it outside, couldn't even make it passed the cell block. They put him in solitary, white walled with only a bed, a sink and a toilet, which he was quite sure had never happened to Neal. He sat there, waiting, staring at those plain white walls that were almost blinding, and wondering why Peter Burke hadn't come to take him away, too.

The End


End file.
